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Commercial Hospitality in Destination Experiences: McDonald’s and Touristic
Consumption of Space
Abstract:
This paper examines the multiple roles that globalised, branded spaces of
commercial hospitality can play in tourists’ experiences in destinations. Drawing on
empirical data of consumers’ discussions of McDonald’s, the paper examines five
themes: 1) controlled separation and the way consumers use these venues as
spaces of comfort and familiarity, while employing notions of home to assess their
touristic consumption of the venues and destinations; 2) strategic behaviour, in
particular how tourists utilise such venues in their broader touristic endeavours; 3)
identity work, specifically as tourists (re)construct their identities as they explain and
often excuse their decision to consume in these venues; 4) engagement(s) with the
destination, including how such hospitality venues are used as reference points by
tourists to mentally construct the destination and shape their consumption practices;
and finally, 5) authenticity, as consumers critically assess their consumption in such
venues alongside critiques of authenticity and globalisation. The paper concludes by
discussing the implications for the marketing and management of this and similar
branded commercial venues, the marketing and management of destinations, and it
outlines avenues for further research.
Keywords: Destination; Experience; Hospitality; Space and place; McDonald's
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1. Introduction
The central role commercial hospitality plays in tourism and more generally in
destination experiences has been acknowledged by Academics (Page, 2011).
References to commercial hospitality within conceptualisations of touristic
experiences emphasise accommodation services and the provision of food and
drinks, and more rarely acknowledge practices of hospitality among service staff and
the “host” community (Smith, 1994). Within the commercial hospitality-tourism
experience nexus, hospitality is frequently considered as a supporting service to
broader experiences in destinations. However, researchers have recognised that
some commercial hospitality, particularly extraordinary gastronomic experiences or
food-servicescapes, may be an important touristic attraction and a key aspect of the
destination experience (Hjalager & Richards, 2002; Kivela & Crotts, 2006; Quan &
Wang, 2004; Sparks, Bowen, & Klag, 2003). Nevertheless, the more general role of
mundane hospitality and foodservice spaces within destination experiences has
received relatively little attention. This study examines the multiple roles that
McDonald’s plays in shaping tourists’ destination experiences. More specifically, the
paper uses tourists’ reflections of McDonald’s to provide a wider set of insights into
the ways in which this and other branded chain of restaurants may be entangled in
their experiences, while also demonstrating how such reflections provide broader
insights into tourists’ experiences within destinations.
This is significant for several reasons. Contemporary research has challenged
simplistic, managerialist conceptions of hospitality, and has encouraged hospitality
research to consider its broader spatialand symbolic dimensions (Lynch, Germann
Molz, McIntosh, Lugosi, & Lashley, 2011). Authors have also sought to make
connections between hospitality and broader social phenomena, including tourism
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(Lynch et al., 2011). The current study helps to understand how consumption in
branded hospitality and foodservice spaces is shaped by the tourist experience in
destinations. Furthermore, it helps to understand such mundane forms of hospitality,
not simply as supporting services, but as key parts of tourist destination experiences.
Finally, examining touristic reflections on McDonald’s offers important insights into
tourists’ experiences, in particular as they relate to notions of comfort and safety,
home and away, identity and authenticity.
2. Literature review
2.1 Hospitality in destination experiences
Touristic experiences in destinations are multidimensional, involving a wide
variety of people, places, organisations, actions, technologies and objects (Quinlan
Cutler & Carmichael, 2010; Ryan, 2002; Sharpley, & Stone, 2012). Within
destinations, tourists engage in a series of consumer and consumption experiences,
the former being defined in market terms, while the latter can involve non-market and
non-commercial transactions (Lugosi & Walls, 2013). Experiences are multi-
sensorial (Agapito, Mendes, & Valle, 2013); and they can have a series of
extraordinary and mundane elements that may emerge in sequence or in parallel
(Walls, Okumus, Wang, & Kwun, 2011). Furthermore, academics recognise that
touristic experiences take place over time, and not just during the visit: beginning
with pre-travel desire, anticipation and preparation, and extending to when people
return home, as they reflect and share their experiences with others (Morgan,
Lugosi, & Ritchie, 2010).
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Hospitality in destination experiences can take a variety of forms, ranging
from its mundane forms, involving people and organisations providing
accommodation, food and drink related services and experiences as part of
commercial transactions, to the creation of shared spaces of interaction involving
emotionally intense encounters between individuals and groups (Lugosi, 2008). The
provision of mundane hospitality may be thought of as a series of functional,
supporting activities in tourism: the provision of shelter and sustenance enables
travellers to engage in other touristic activities. However, hospitality can also be a
peak experience in tourism and the fundamental reason to engage in travel, for
example, visiting novel eating and drinking venues (Mykletun & Gyimóthy, 2010;
Quan & Wang, 2004). Such mundane and extraordinary hospitality experiences may
reaffirm existing cultural values and notions of identity; and venues may be sites
where cultural practices usually performed in tourist’s home settings are reproduced;
however, they may also enable consumers to engage activities that subvert their
cultural norms and to create new cultural expressions, including of identity (Harrison
& Lugosi, 2013; Lugosi, 2014; Pritchard & Morgan, 2006).
In the context of the current discussion, it is important to conceive hospitality
as a spatial phenomenon, where the social, material and symbolic coexist. Spaces of
hospitality are not fixed, static entities; rather they should be thought of, in Lefebvre’s
(1991) terms, as being produced through the ongoing mobilisation of capital and
power, representations of spaces and everyday embodied practices (cf. Lefebvre,
1991; see also Cuthill, 2007; Lugosi, 2009, 2014). Such spaces thus emerge at the
interface of production and consumption, involving multiple stakeholders, including
but not limited to organisations, frontline employees, consumers/tourists, policy
makers, marketers, local residents. As tourists engage with the material and the
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social environment in destinations, different touristic spaces are perceived or
rendered inclusive/exclusive or hospitable/inhospitable.
The (in)hospitableness of touristic space(s) and the role of hospitality within
destination experiences is determined by a number of factors. These include the key
purpose of the visit to a destination, fellow travellers, the type of tourist, for example,
their desire for sensation seeking and where they lay on the allocentric/psychocentric
continuum (Lepp & Gibson, 2008), and, related to this, their openness towards
different gastronomic experiences (Mitchell & Hall, 2003). Access to resources,
including time, and economic and cultural capital, the availability of hospitality
offerings and a range of other social and cultural factors (on the part of providers and
consumers) are also likely to shape how, where and when tourists engage with
different food and hospitality experiences (cf. Kim, Eves, & Scarles, 2009; Mak,
Lumbers, Eves, & Chang, 2012; Stephenson, 2014).
There is an extensive body of work that has considered the different
dimensions of hospitality management and its commercial manifestations (cf. Wood
& Brotherton, 2008). There is also growing body of work that examines the
relationship between food and tourism, for example, the role of cuisine in promoting
destinations (Okumus, Okumus, & McKercher, 2007), the links between foodservice
and event tourism experiences (Robinson & Clifford, 2012), extraordinary
gastronomic experiences in tourism (Mykletun & Gyimóthy, 2010), or the role of
gastronomy in shaping tourists’ return intentions (Kivela & Crotts, 2006). However,
this body of work does not address the interaction of mundane forms of commercial
hospitality with broader touristic experiences in the destination. This paper attempts
to address this gap in knowledge. Furthermore, beyond narrowly considering food,
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this paper is concerned with commercial spaces of hospitality, and importantly, some
of the key products, services and experiences (including food) these spaces offer.
The study focuses on McDonald’s specifically for several interrelated reasons.
Firstly, McDonald’s is a widely recognised brand, with presence in a wide range of
destinations around the world. Therefore, it is a common cultural and organisational
entity, encountered by a wide range of people both as tourists and as residents in
their places of origin. Secondly, as we discuss below, McDonald’s and its
‘propositions of hospitality’ (Lugosi, 2009) provoke a range of psychological and
emotional reactions, from both active consumers who patronise their venues, and
those who do not. McDonald’s thus offers a prominent and provocative reference
point with which to examine touristic experiences of destinations, as well as the role
that McDonald’s and other similar types of globally established hospitality/
foodservice venues play in those experiences.
2.2 McDonald’s: A foodservice operation and global brand
McDonald’s is a globally established corporation and an iconic brand. It has
penetrated international markets through the development of scientific management
techniques alongside and the adaptation of its offerings to local contexts (Vignali,
2001). Although the standard menu offers many signifiers of American “home”, such
as the fried apple pie (Willink, 2006), the company’s policy is to customise
restaurants to local needs, for example, replacing pork with lamb in Muslim countries
(cf. Kabbassi, 2008; Kamalipour, 2006; Vignali, 2001; Watson, 1997).
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In terms of consumer experiences, the design and aesthetics of McDonald’s
restaurants vary according to the market context, but all operations reflect certain
“Western” standards specified by the company, including air-conditioning,
cleanliness, affordability, consistent product quality and scripted service (Vignali,
2001). Menus and in-store signage extend these themes of experiential and
operational consistency, at the same time implicitly constructing and positioning the
customer as a rational consumer whose time is precious (Manning, & Cullum-Swan,
1994). The outlets simulate happiness, togetherness and a family focus through their
product lines (e.g. Happy-meals), co-branding (with popular family and children-
oriented entertainment figures), upbeat, broad-reaching marketing campaigns and
the design of servicescapes (Vignali, 2001).
McDonald’s’ ubiquity, its rational management systems and its power to
shape food systems, foodways and landscapes has made it a symbol of
globalisation and of western, rational capitalism (Kincheloe, 2002; Ritzer, 2004;
Watson, 1997). Consequently, it has negative connotations, and it is often
associated with discourses of standardisation, routinisation, globalisation, cultural
hegemony and unhealthy lifestyles (Cummins, McKay, & MacIntyre, 2005;
Kincheloe, 2002; Ritzer, 2004). However, the aim here is not to rehearse critiques of
McDonald’s at length; rather they are stressed here to highlight that McDonald’s as a
foodservice operation and global brand has multiple connotations, both positive and
negative. As our data shows, consumers are aware of the multiple connotations of
McDonald’s, which influences their relationship with venues; and, as we argue,
subsequently intercedes their experiences of touristic destinations.
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3. Methods
The overall research project which this paper is drawn from was conducted in
two stages, involving two different methods: interviews and the analysis of Internet
forums. In the first stage, 25 exploratory semi-structured interviews were conducted
with European nationalities in Denmark, Hong Kong and the United Kingdom where
informants were asked to talk about their destination experiences, especially in
terms of foods eaten abroad. These produced 18,299 words of relevant transcribed
text, in which 24 of the interviewees specifically mentioned McDonald’s. had been
broached.
In order to triangulate with these data, a second stage of the research was
conducted, in which unsolicited tourist discourse was collected from online forums
(cf. Mkono, 2012), following Kozinets’ (2010, 2002) procedural recommendations.
Fourteen discussion threads were identified, which contained commentary on the
use of McDonald’s while travelling abroad. These postings were downloaded
between 01 January 2010 and 01 January 2011, totalling 784 items and producing
85,654 words of text.
Postings were successively refined using the procedures suggested by
Kozinets (2010, 2002) and Puri (2007), e.g. by noting any hints contributors gave of
their demography or purpose, and by applying a process of continual comparison, to
ensure that comments were faithful to the context and the individuals they were
supposed to represent. Posted articles written in a journalistic style in order to initiate
discussions (used at several sites) were discarded at this stage, since the objective
was to obtain spontaneous testimony and these blogs represented what de Certeau
(1984: 134) referred to as the “scriptural economy”, rather than the spontaneous,
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vernacular commentary that was desired. This process reduced the original raw
data to 437 postings, containing 20,374 words of narrative. The range of posting
dates is shown in Table 1
Table 1 about here, please
The data were subjected to qualitative thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006),
which involved a process of data familiarisation, coding and gradual data reduction
as coded data were brought together under higher order themes. Table 2 shows
these themes, together with their rates of occurrenceIn this paper we draw on the
data emerging from the Internet forums.
Table 2 about here, please
4. Results and discussion
4.1 McDonald’s and controlled separation
Academics have long recognised the potential for hospitality venues in
destinations to function as spaces of controlled separation, where tourists are
removed from the host culture (Dann, 2000; Edensor, 2007; Harrison & Lugosi,
2013). Many of the postings suggested that McDonald’s fulfilled some of the
requirements of a sanctuary for tourists. As one commentator noted: “When you're
half a world from anyplace a cheeseburger becomes a mental life preserver,
something almost sacred.” As well as being a refuge it was a “staged” repository of
Western artefacts and rituals (cf. Edensor, 2001). Artefacts included the familiar food
and drink, the paperware in which it was served, the signage and icons (such as
Ronald McDonald), menu presentation and interior design. Rituals included offering
ice and refills in drinks, the scripted, dramatised service and spoken English.
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The experience of consuming in McDonald’s was considered in relation to
notions of home, which provided a reference point for considering experiences in the
destination alongside articulating notions of identity. Notions of home refer to the
conceptions of the venue, but also to tourists’ actual homes and the values they
entail, which were mobilised in their interpretations of McDonald’s and the overall
touristic experience in which the visit to the venue took place. For example:
When I am on vacation overseas seeing [a McDonald’s] is like a
hopping in a Concord [to] bring me home for just a few minutes when
the whole experience is overwhelming. I can get my quarter pounder
and fries and a real coke, and feel at home again even in the most
upbeat European city.
McDonald’s made it possible to be present in a foreign culture for part of the
time, in a controlled separation of the familiar and the unfamiliar, particularly when
the foreign culture was perceived as overwhelming, or unintelligible:
Even my Chinese wife admits that sitting in McDonald’s is a useful
mind-clearing exercise after an overstimulating adventure on Chinese
trains and subways.
It's definitely a comfort going into these establishments and order
something without having to knock your brains out on what to order
and how to order.
McDonald’s provided refuge and thus a sense of temporary ownership over space,
which was not available in a foreign destination:
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You seek out the most westernized mall you can find, order a burger
and fries, buy a ticket to the latest Hollywood blockbuster and
completely zone out to all the things far more exotic around you.
Tourists spoke of McDonald’s as “space” with minimal sensory and cultural
demands which allowed respite from the surrounding culture. However, the
perceived lack of stimulation was to a large extent generated by the presence of
Western facilities and the application of Western values. Thus it was not truly
culturally “empty” (to local people it might well have been stimulating), but it offered
tourists the setting, practices and “props” (Goffman, 1990) necessary for them to
occupy the spaces of hospitality within the broader destination on their own terms.
For some tourists, who had very specific dietary restrictions, notions of ownership
and control over place were entangled even further with McDonald’s’ core values
regarding standardisation and consistency. McDonald’s provided a safer option for
food than local restaurants, because it was familiar from home:
When we travel in any place we look for McDonald’s ... because we’re
familiar with it. We know it. ... Because we are Muslims there’s not
many things that we are allowed to eat. [we know they do not serve
halal meat as they do at home] but they serve fish or other vegetarian
sandwiches because you know it’s not allowed for us to eat their
chicken or meat.
4.2 McDonald’s and strategic behaviour
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Closely linked to the notion of comfort and safety that McDonald’s offered were the
touristic practices and performances that its staging subsequently facilitated in a
destination (See Edensor, 2000, 2001 for further discussion of the staging-
performance interaction in destinations). As a commentator added: “Traveling can be
overwhelming, and McDonald’s is a safe haven to decompress and regroup to face
the stress....” For many contributors, McDonald’s permitted strategic behaviour
similar to that at home. For instance, people said they were able to eat a particular
style of breakfast or use certain menu items to relieve hangover symptoms.
McDonald’s was also seen as offering relief from the “work” of tourism, a “place”
where tourists could dwell briefly and undertake strategic activities of recovering their
energies and planning:
We just wanted to sit down for 30 minutes in air conditioning at a place
with free refills on sodas with ice in them. Once we cooled off and
rehydrated, THEN we went looking for a nice place to eat and have
some wine.
When traveling and tired, a quick Big Mac and straight to bed is often
a better option than taking time to eat more enjoyable food. Speed and
predictability have their place.
Strategic recovery prepared them for what was evidently perceived as a
tactical assault on the destination:
While in principle I like other countries' norms that you should sit down
and take your time with your food, sometimes that doesn't work when I
want to catch a train/plane/one more museum. No time to sit? McFood
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to the rescue! (This is especially true at breakfast, when the street
food isn't out yet.)
These reflections appear to reinforce McDonald’s functional status in foodways
(Manning, & Cullum-Swan, 1994), insofar as these practices emerge in response to
the pressures of tourism mobility. More importantly, these reflections also highlight
that such decisions to consume (in) McDonald’s were driven by necessity and that
they were presented as temporary suspensions of a more meaningful engagement
with the gastronomic culture in a destination.
4.3 McDonald’s and identity work
The points raised in the previous quotes, concerning necessity and the
temporariness of McDonald’s consumption, also highlight tourists’ concerns with
their performed and perceived identities. Touristic practices in destinations offer
ways to reaffirm certain aspects of identity, which tourists bring from home (Andrews,
2005); indeed, tourism may be driven by a desire to grow and to construct lifestyle
identities (Cohen, 2010); but tourism may also be transformative in generating new
notions of self (Bond & Falk, 2013). Consumption of and in McDonald’s also offered
points of reference in tourist’s reflections of their sense of selves and cultural routes,
for example:
Once you walk through the front door you know they speak English
and you say to yourself, this is who I am, my country created this.
However, in most commentaries, rather than expressing a sense of pride or self-
assurance, consuming McDonald’s was categorised as a tactical coping mechanism:
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“I needed some USA comfort food at the point when culture shock overwhelmed me.
After a good night’s sleep I was back on my feet and ready to explore Chinese
cuisine again.”
Stressing the tactical nature of such consumption also served to highlight the
tensions that also arose, particularly as the homelike qualities of McDonald’s
frequently conflicted with tourists’ perceptions of identity: “I let my kids eat
McDonald's in Sienna, Italy. I felt like a dirty American tourist.” Such statements point
to a reflexive concern for cultural distinction (Bourdieu, 1986) where consumption in
McDonald’s challenged notions of good parenthood and enlightened allocentricity.
Several of the commentators subsequently engaged in defensive commentaries,
which attempted to explain or excuse such activities, while reasserting notions of
cultural position.
There's a difference between ‘ugly Americans’ who go abroad and
ONLY eat American fast food, and cultured [tourists] who have spent
days eating locally and every once in a while just need a little reminder
of home.
There’s nothing wrong with a Big Mac every once in a while... Thai
food is quite obviously wonderful, but it’s unrealistic to think it can be
eaten three times a day, every day (unless you’re Thai). After all, when
I’m in the US I don’t eat one particular cuisine endlessly.
Thus, although the tourist role brought a perceived obligation to “eat locally”, there
was apparently a need or right sometimes to eat as if at home.
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Others used alternative forms of explanation or justification for consuming in
McDonald’s. Graburn (1989: 22-23) notes that the ordeals of travel confirm values of
pilgrimage and sacred quest. Some contributors considered their consumption of
McDonald’s in relation to the “necessity” of self-enforced poverty:
[In cities] tourists might be able to pay for a local meal, but travelers
typically cannot in these locations. I eat McDonald’s because I
challenge you to find me an 80p meal anywhere else in the city!
Such poverty even allowed individuals to feel superior to other “tourists”, another
important goal of what Cohen (1973) calls the “drifter”. Because it was cast as
unfortunate necessity, eating at McDonald’s went beyond monetary poverty to
become a poverty of aesthetics or spirit, an ordinariness and “making do” that further
increased the rigours of the travel ordeal.
4.4 McDonald’s and engagement with destination
The previous sections considered how McDonald’s represented a specific
type of accessible and inclusive hospitable space, which offered temporary escape
and control, enabling tourists to engage in the tactical exploration of the destination.
Within this second section, we consider further the role that McDonald’s played in
experiencing the destination as a physical, social and symbolic entity. Contributors’
perceptions of the destination presupposed a “normal” world where fast food was the
rule. Therefore, local versions of fast food were regarded as acceptable while those
from global chains were not:
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I have a rule that I, so far, have not (willingly) broken: when away from
home, I forbid myself to eat at any restaurant that also exists at my
home ... This leads me often to (usually upscale) chains that don't
exist at home.
When I travel I like knowing I'm NOT in the U.S. McDonald's and the
like, are such blatant reminders of what I want to get away from. I like
the fantasy that some things remain "pure" or untouched by mass
production.
Both these statements stress the overt acknowledgement and rejection of
westernised spaces of hospitality. However, even if the tourist’s choice was to use
McDonald’s as a point of disengagement with Western culture, McDonald’s venues
continued to function as symbolic and physical reference points for navigating the
destination and thus the touristic experience:
He couldn't remember the name of the hotel we were staying at, but
knew it was a block from McDonald's. He jumped in a cab, and over
the cabbie's protest that it was closed, got a ride to McD's.
There must have been many other ways of mentally structuring the city, but
McDonald’s was prioritised over other, unfamiliar landmarks, and was used to
reduce the parameters, making comparison and hence negotiation easier.
While some tourists saw McDonald’s in contrast to an authentic experience of
place, several contributors spoke of interpreting the destination through McDonald’s.
One for instance described it as a “lens” through which new cultures could be
experienced: “Actually, eating McDonald’s abroad has become a way of dipping my
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French fries deeper in the foreigner’s way of eating.” Many contributors saw
McDonald’s as a fusion between here and there, at least at the level of food. They
used the familiar context as an interpreting tool, because it reduced the experience
to a simple comparison:
I don’t even eat at McDonald’s at HOME. But ... I now make it a point
to visit one American fast food joint in every country I visit. There’s
something about seeing something that is supposed to be one way,
and seeing it interpreted by a different culture. The food tastes
different, the menu looks different, but only slightly. Those slight
differences are so not what you are expecting that you notice them
more.
Visiting McDonald’s was habitual to the point of being a ritual for some
tourists, but in the liminoid tourist state (Graburn, 1989; Turner, 1974), serious and
playful elements resonated with one another, so that play and earnest became
indistinguishable:
It started out as a joke but I try and have a Big Mac in each country I
visit. So far the count is 15 and I have pictures from 12 of them. My
wife could not believe that I wasted a lunch on our trip to Italy at
McDonalds but it made a very nice photo.
4.5 McDonald’s and authenticity
The previous set of commentaries, regarding encounters with a destination,
highlighted tourists’ concern with the authenticity of their experiences, which were
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again mediated by and thus constructed through consumption of McDonald’s. For
some visitors, the materiality of McDonald’s appeared to be overtly entangled in the
experience of place:
When I went to China for two weeks, I stopped at a McDonald’s to get
a bite. I kept clean napkins, tray liners, nugget containers, Coke cans -
anything with the Golden Arches, in addition to the authentic Chinese
knick-knacks I brought back with me.
For this contributor, the souvenirs acquired at McDonald’s managed to juxtapose
“here” and “there” but were regarded as “unofficial”, not accredited by an acceptable
authority. The souvenir shops where the “authentic knick-knacks” were bought were
seen as more authoritative and the items were therefore more authentic. However,
as another contributor suggested, for some tourists, the glocalisation of McDonald’s
apparatus could reassert the authenticity of place and culture: “If you are in the
McDonalds in Abu Dhabi, that IS a local experience... Maybe you want to save the
ketchup packages written with Arabic script.”
In a similar vein, contributors mentioned “exotic” culinary experiences that
they had had at McDonald’s, some of which could have been enjoyed in the ir own
countries. Eating these foods in their expected country of origin seemed to make
them more authentic, while eating them in McDonald’s made the experience more
accessible in an otherwise alien environment: “Had beer and bratwurst in Cologne,
Germany; Rome offered raw oysters and other fish in a glassed area separate from
the regular food line.” In this case the authentically exotic nature of the local foods
contrasted with the “regular food line”, and they seemed to make McDonald’s a true
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part of the foreign travel experience, even though this was belied by customers
eating hamburgers in an adjacent area.
However, reflections on a trip to McDonald’s could also be used by tourists to
engage in more critical reflections on the questionable nature of authenticity and its
link to consumption in such venues:
Are we about to criticize all those locals for choosing McDonald’s, as if
we have the right to tell them what is authentic and what is not? The
truth is, a local experience is an experience in the country you are in.
Other contributors commented that it was impossible to find destinations and locals
unaffected by globalisation and that locals’ presence in McDonald’s constituted their
reality, and hence should be seen by the tourist as authentic. The juxtaposition of
“here” and “there” offered by McDonald’s for some represented an existential
authenticity (Reisinger & Steiner, 2006; Wang, 1999), but also reinforced for them
the constructed and contested nature of authenticity (Cohen & Cohen, 2012) that
they experienced abroad:
To see the “real China” for example you should visit a Chinese
McDonalds and see whole families enjoying a “night out” but of course
that’s not the “real China” a tourist is looking for. Get impression
sometimes that “authentic” in the eyes of the tourists means
“confirming the often old-fashioned perception of a country” rather than
seeing the real country.
Contributors discussing the consumption of McDonald’s in a destination frequently
expressed scorn for anti-globalist discourses as well as scepticism regarding the
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discourses of “authenticity” and towards notions of the culturally sensitive
independent traveller:
And who’s to say that eating at a Tokyo noodle bar dive with a bunch
of backpackers provides a more “authentic” experience than chatting
with local teenagers over an Ebi Fillet at McDonald’s? What matters
more than where we eat is how we connect with another culture.
In such exchanges, where contributors attempted to negatively position
individuals consuming McDonald’s as “tourists”, in contrast to “travellers” who ate
local cuisine, others deliberately rejected such modernist categorisations. Instead,
they adopted a more postmodern stance to culture and constructed identity
(Edensor, 2001), in which McDonald’s was an accepted part of social reality for
tourists and locals. Consuming McDonald’s was simultaneously a part of globalised
culture, a necessary and sometimes useful part of touristic experiences, as well as
being an object of reflection for the construction of identity. Notion of superiority
expressed towards inferior tourists and consumer of McDonald’s was also rejected
as another identity position associated with clichéd attempts at social distinction.
5. Conclusion and implications for management and research
This paper has shown how McDonald’s mediates destination experiences by
offering a simulacrum of home that tourists recognise as rich in personal, social and
ideological meanings. Its signifiers are often unacceptable to tourists at home, but
may become acceptable in a foreign country. The simulacrum of home confers a
sense of ownership and belonging, but McDonald’s may also offer a simulacrum of
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the touristic destination, through limited ranges of locally influenced foods, local
customs and styles, and also through the presence of local people. Thus there is a
juxtaposition of home and the foreign touristic space through the simultaneous
presence of two sets of signifiers, and McDonald’s is perceived as a means to
interpret and experience the destination.
McDonald’s allows tourists to escape the destination: it allows them to sample
local foods in a familiar environment, and for those entering from the surrounding
foreign culture it provides a refuge. The juxtaposition of home and the foreign tourist
space thus gives tourists a feeling of control over the process of travelling abroad;
they “go” but keep home in sight, or are “at home” but still surrounded by alien
territory, both inside and outside the restaurant. Hence McDonald’s provides
elements of the “binary opposition” (Rojek, 1997; Urry, 1990) the juxtaposition and
resonance that is essential to the tourist experience.
Being effectively both “home” and “away from home”, McDonald’s is at the
same time the tourist’s own territory (i.e. “place”) and a colonisable territory (“space”)
of “others”. It forms a retreat for strategic consolidation and for planning a tactical
assault on local attractions, and it may also directly support tactical behaviour in the
form of sampling local delicacies or meeting local people.
As well as refuge, McDonald’s offers artefacts and rituals appropriate to a
sanctuary. Tourists appreciate these as possessing similar qualities to home. The
tourist quest for novel experiences emerges through an awareness of home, and the
immediate hospitable space, with its associated paraphernalia and social practices,
enables tourists to appreciate the co-existing qualities of home and the destination.
Although many tourists regard McDonald’s as a respite from the rigours of the tourist
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quest, some see eating there as contributing to their ordeal by supporting their
voluntary poverty and perceived inability to go to local restaurants. McDonald’s may
also be a focus for playful behaviour related to the liminal quality of the tourist
experience.
The juxtaposition of “here” and “there” makes McDonald’s at once “real” and
“authentic”. Though it may be the day-to-day reality of local people, it is perceived by
some tourists as lacking authenticity. However, McDonald’s can also offer the
existential authenticity of seeing local people, customs and foods in a very real
process of adaptation to globalisation.
Finally, the (online) discussion of the (in)authenticity of consuming
McDonald’s becomes a point of critical reflection. Considering McDonald’s offers a
way for people to reassert their cultural positions (Bourdieu, 1986); it can also be
used to explain and justify choices, which may otherwise contradict their values.
Moreover, discussing McDonald’s also allows people to reflect more critically on the
nature of authenticity, the legitimacy of engaging in cultural critiques of consumption
and of adopting particular hierarchic positions.
The emerging findings from this study have a number of implications for
management and research. Firstly, at the level of organisation, the findings point to
the necessity for operators to understand what the experience of consumption in
McDonald’s and other such international branded venues entails. Consumption in
and of a venue in a destination setting has social and psychological functions,
offering recognisable, safe and accessible spaces from which to experience the
broader destination setting, or indeed to escape it. These insights may inform any
(re)engineering of the customer experience, in terms of the services, the product
23
lines as well as the design of the service environment to appeal to such market
segments. Appreciating the safety and security functions can also inform an
organisation’s marketing strategy, particularly as it engages in communications and
promotions which appeals to market segments that view venues as spaces of
comfort, familiarity and escape. These promotional campaigns may also utilise more
of the material aspects of their service offerings, e.g. paperware, condiments, toys
and novelty items that effectively cross-utilise features of the global brand and the
local features of their products.
Secondly, the findings have implications for destination marketing and
management. Specifically, by having a clearer understanding of a) the different
zoning of tourism (i.e. what sort of tourism takes places where), b) the different types
of tourists that occupy certain spaces in a destination, and c) the services and
facilities desired by the different segments, planners can be better informed
regarding the appropriateness of licensing and locating such global, branded chains
in a destination. Some tourists (and residents) will continue to see the presence of
global chains as a sign of cultural homogenisation and hegemony, which will lead
them to avoid the areas or attractions; and in these cases McDonald’s will continue
to have a negative impact upon visitor perceptions. However, as the study suggests,
having such branded venues in a destination, albeit contained and located away
from touristically significant centres that are still accessible to tourists, may allow
visitors to positively experience the “authentic” spaces of the destination and the
“contrived” spaces of globalised hospitality. The experience of the former may, after
all, be enhanced by having strategic access to the latter.
Such commodified spaces may offer comfort, familiarity and opportunities for
recovery for consumers laying at different points on the allocentric/psychocentric
24
continuum. Tourists’ use of such landmarks for negotiating a foreign city
demonstrates the importance of familiar signifiers when constructing a spatial
narrative in a foreign environment, even if their experiences are shaped by actively
rejecting such global brands. However, it is also important to recognise touristic
agency in evaluating discourses of authenticity and globalisation. This is not to deny
or dismiss the potentially negative impacts of homogenisation and globalisation;
rather, it is an acknowledgement that tourists as well as academics have informed,
critical, often postmodern, interpretations of authenticity within a culture. McDonald’s
may be seen to challenge and even destroy local culture(s) and social practices, but
tourists’ narratives suggest that they critically reflect upon such critiques of
globalisation.
This leads on to the final set of implications regarding further research. The
current paper is based on a relative small sample of qualitative material, drawn from
naturally emerging data regarding McDonald’s. This line of inquiry, regarding the
multiple functions of this branded chain of commercial hospitality in destinations,
could be extended to investigate other brands and comparison of brands. This may
offer a better comparative picture of how similar venues such as branded coffee
houses e.g Starbucks operate in particular destinations, especially how they
influence people’s perceptions of space, their experiences, satisfaction and post
experience behaviour. It may also be useful to move beyond naturally generated
data, by interviewing visitors and residents or engaging in quantitative surveys about
their uses of, and attitudes towards, branded chains in destination experiences.
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Table 1 Numbers of postings by date
Posting date No. of postings %
2005 1 0.2%
2006 102 23.3%
2007 21 4.8%
2008 90 20.6%
2009 208 47.6%
2010 15 3.4%
Total 437 100.0%
33
Table 2 Themes and sub-themes, with numbers of comments
Practical support Web (no)
Interview Personal needs/desires
Web (no)
Interview
Price 77 Escape 129
Standardisation 73 Familiarity 105
Toilets 51 American culture 70
Convenient 49 Behaviour change 32
Food quality 37 Breakfast 28
Clean/hygiene 34 Hyperspace 17
Health/nutrition/diet 27 Hangover remedy 10
Language 26 Friend/colleague 7
Safe 23 Fast food needs 6
Children 20 age 6
Opening hours 20
Ex pats 2
wifi 14 Loneliness remedy (item 43) 1
No smoking 5 Total 413
Bus timetable 1
Litter 1
Authenticity
Total 458
Authentic 89
Other local restaurants, chains, foods 79
Interpretative
Food adventure 17
Regional variations in menus 108 Total 185
Featured local foods 98
McDonald’s tourism 86 Negative feelings
Better than USA 55
Shame/guilt 60
Not as good as USA 11
Globalisation 42
Local attraction 39 Protest 15
Beer/wine 26
Food police 5
Souvenirs 10 Total 122
Design/image 8
Photos 7
Mention of specific restaurants
Curiosity 6 Total 338
Opposite sex 5
Total 459
Total items indexed 1975
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